


Lapdog

by TheSigyn



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Violence against Children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-10 00:55:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4371017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSigyn/pseuds/TheSigyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy is suffering with a longing for death in her new life, when circumstances drop a young child into her lap, clinging to life while tortured by death. With Spike as her only possible ally, Buffy must face three days of life, death, and consequences, with everything mirrored in the eyes of one complete innocent, and one brutal killer. Seven chapters, complete at 17,000 words. Inspired by a challenge from Beautiful_Tyrant77. Nominee Sunnydale Memorial Fanfiction Awards, Round 32, Best Plot, Best Original Character, Best Drama. http://sunnydawards.dragonydreams.com/</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lapdog

**Author's Note:**

> Since this is the only challenge fic I’m ever likely to do, it sort of wandered a bit, since I didn’t have a huge idea of what I wanted to say when I started. For the most part what I did was put the characters down on the stage, and listened to what they said to each other. It ended up being very intimate, and rather informative about later decisions. I played with the challenge stated season a little, to make it more canon, so this is set in early season six, before their affair.  
> This story is dedicated to my currently two and a half year old son, who knows most of the songs from Once More With Feeling by heart (if with his own toddler language interpretations) and seems to have a serious crush on “Buppy.” As he frequently asks when I turn the show off, “Bring Buppy back on!” He also cries at fight scenes, so I have to fast-forward them. He doesn’t like to see Buffy get hurt. As he says, “Wrong!” Until the guy gets dusted, then he’s thrilled. “Uh oh! Bad guy!” followed by laughter. I have a weird kid.

  
    The night was cool and peaceful. Buffy knew she should go home. She knew she should make sure Dawn had done her homework and got to bed at a reasonable hour. She knew she had laundry to do, and she hadn’t cleaned her bathroom in... well, ever, and the toilet was starting to get a ring which her mother would never have allowed. She needed to get some groceries, too, and the lawn.... Well, Xander might mow the lawn for her, but she needed to ask him.

    Not for the first time, she wished none of it was her job.

    She knew, if they’d never bothered bringing her back from the dead, that it would all be someone else’s problem. It would be Tara’s job to bring home the groceries, and turn them into breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Willow would figure out how to keep the house clean. Xander would just do the yard and repair work, without anyone having to ask him, and Dawn would have to figure out how to grow up fast, just as Buffy had – what with all the death and slaying she’d had to do.

    And Spike could do the slaying, she thought, as she spied him sauntering through the cemetery, not very subtly coming toward her. “Knew you’d be here.”

    “Didn’t know you would be,” she said. Her feelings toward Spike lately had become very vague. The clearly delineated lines between _good_ and _evil_ had blurred so much in him that she wasn’t at all sure where he stood, either in her opinion of him, or in his position in the world. He’d gone in her _Slayer Foes_ category from dangerous enemy, to trusted enemy, was eventually downgraded to mere adversary, then trusted adversary, then further downgraded to annoyance. Once she’d realized he was in love with her, he’d been slightly upgraded to distrusted and _active_ annoyance.

    After he’d nearly died to protect Dawn at the hands of Glory, Buffy had ostensibly placed him in a completely different _Necessity_ category, but she wasn’t sure if he was a welcome or unwelcome necessity.

    Now that she had been torn back into the real world of finances, frustration, and pain, Spike was just... there. Sometimes she hated that he was there. Sometimes, she was so glad of it.  Right now, it seemed like too much bother to try and figure out what she felt about it.

    “Need some help on patrol?”

    She shrugged. “I checked out the new graves. Nothing unusual.”

    “Um, well... how about _them_ ,” Spike asked, pointing through the darkness to the other end of the cemetery.

    A pair of vamps – not newborns, since they weren’t dressed in funeral garb – was on their way through the cemetery, heading for one of the tombs both Spike and Buffy knew led to the tunnels. “Friends of yours?” Buffy asked, as she broke into a run.

    “I don’t have any vamp friends anymore, you know that,” Spike added. “And thank you so much for bringing it up.”

    “It’s not my fault you’re an amoral demon with no problems killing your own kind,” Buffy puffed.

    “Hey,” Spike said. “Gotta kill something.”

    “Actually,” Buffy said, jumping over a gravestone, “ _no_. Most people don’t.”

    “Says the girl with the stake in her hand,” Spike said.

    “I’m not most – people!” Buffy said,  having caught up with the vampires at last, and landing a blow on the nearest one.  A man and a woman, unkempt and slovenly, as far too many young vampires tended to be. Something about coming back from the dead seemed to make most of them feel like the niceties of life were beyond them, or perhaps like they didn’t need to bother with hygiene or good grooming any longer. Buffy had never understood it.

    Until recently.

    She punched the male in the face, and ducked as he swung back. The woman swung a duffel bag off her shoulders and tried to give Spike a good batter with it, but he back stepped it, and then got in a good hit, making the female vampire stagger backwards. Buffy was actually bored by her opponent, who seemed to think that if he just kept hitting wide, one of his blows would connect. But she kept having difficulties getting a good shot at his chest. The woman dropped her duffel bag and tried to head butt Spike’s torso, but Spike grabbed her, turned her, and held her down with his foot.

    “Slayer!” he called out, and Buffy realized the man she was battling had managed to pull out a knife. He suddenly seemed much more confident, and Buffy realized he had skills with the blade he didn’t realize he had with his fangs – he must have been a knife-fighter before he was turned.

    Buffy read Spike’s intention in his fighting stance, so she ducked and rolled, taking over the pressure on the woman’s back, as Spike did a flying twist over her to face the male. This gave Buffy time to stake the female, who went up in dust a second later, while Spike made a round house kick that caught the blade on his thick black boot, effectively rendering it useless. The male twisted, bending over in an attempt to regain balance, and Buffy dusted him before he’d even realized Spike had maneuvered him in front of her.

    Spike grinned, and Buffy couldn’t help but crack a smile, even if she rolled her eyes during it. It had been a good fight. The two of them fought well together, something that had always been the case, even when they were fighting each other. The problem with having a sense of your opponent’s moves and intentions meant that neither of them ever really got the upper hand, so their fights just went on and on. This battle intuition between them worked much better when they were on the same side. The fights usually ended quickly, whenever they voluntarily worked together.

    “Well, that got the old blood pumping,” Spike said.

    “You don’t pump. Blood.” She stopped, realizing she had, yet again, inadvertently thrown him an innuendo. She had no idea how these kept falling out of her mouth.

    “Who said I was talking about mine?” Spike said, managing to make it sound like something erotic.

    “Shut up,” Buffy said, and was annoyed to realize it sounded more flirtatious than anything else.

    “Should we check the tunnels?” Spike asked.

    “Nah. They weren’t dressed like they were heading for a party. I should get home.”

    “I’ll stick with, till you’re out of the graveyard,” Spike said. She didn’t even want to protest. Spike’s company had become much easier than anyone else’s. They’d walked a few steps when Spike stopped. “Hang on a sec,” he said, sniffing. He turned and looked behind a gravestone. Sure enough, there was the medium sized duffle bag the woman had been carrying, carelessly dropped on the turf. “Buffy,” he said grimly. He opened the bag, and pulled something out. At first, Buffy thought it was a bundle of clothes. Then she thought it was another bag within the first one. Then, to her horror, Buffy realized what he held in his hands. A small child, bound with duct tape.

    It wiggled, clearly alive, and Spike ripped the tape off its wrists.

    Buffy looked, and gasped. “What in the hell?” she asked. “Why would a vampire–?”  She cut herself off, realizing the truth.

    “It’s a pack lunch,” Spike said, answering anyway.

    Buffy sagged in horror and sat on the gravestone. “Is he all right?”  The child’s eyes stared wide at them. He couldn’t have been older than two. His brown hair was mussed and sticky, and there was blood on his shirt. Spike worked the duct tape off the child’s mouth, looking him over. Buffy answered her own question. “He seems okay,” she said. “Can you track his scent, Spike? We have to get him back home – if there is anyone at home. Ugh. This is horrible.”

    “More horrible than you know,” Spike said a second later. He leaned a little away from the boy. “It could be even worse.”

    “What do you mean?”

    “He might not be lunch. He might be a lapdog.”

    “A what?”

    Spike showed Buffy the bite marks on the child’s neck. “They might have turned him,” Spike said.

    Buffy was horrified all over again. “But, wait, wouldn’t he be going through transition? He’d look dead, right, until the demon took over?”

    “Not necessarily,” Spike said. “Not at this size. There’s so little blood to start with, you can turn an infant even without even killing them first. And he has been bitten. Until the demon makes it through his system to the brain, we’d have no way of knowing.”

    “How long does that take?”

    “Same for an adult, one to three days,” Spike said. “You know that.”

    “And he might not go through a death transition? He’d just turn around and suddenly be vamped?”

    “Pretty much, though it usually happens while they’re sleeping. It’s just that the heart’ll stop and the demon’ll take over at pretty much the same time. None of this waiting period between.”

    “Why would anyone turn a baby?”

    “Like I said,” Spike said. “As a lapdog.”

    Buffy was surprised at the distaste in his voice. “Spike, does this bother you?”

    He shrugged.

    “Since when do you care about anyone dying or being turned?”

    “Ever been annoyed by a Chihuahua?” Spike asked, stepping back with disgust. “I hate lapdogs, they’re a pain.”

    Buffy collected the child – who was clearly in shock – and pulled him to her. His warm little body was a surprisingly comfortable weight in her arms. He held on to her with his chubby little hands as if she was the angel of salvation. “What are they like, these _lapdogs_?”

    “Well, the name came from something. Around humans, they’re like rabid dogs,” Spike said. “Ankle biters.”

    “And around other vampires?”

    “ _Brats_ ,” Spike said with contempt. He stood up to go. “Put it in a cage till you know for sure. I’ll see you later.”

    “What? No!”

    “No, you won’t see me later?”

    “No, I’m not putting him in a cage!” Buffy said. “He’s a victim!”

    “He’s a snack,” Spike said.

    “And you’re a monster.”

    “We’re in agreement, there,” Spike said.

    Buffy glared at him. “You take him.” She pressed the child into his arms.

    “What?” Spike stepped back, refusing to hold it.

    “Well, I can’t take him home, he might attack Dawn or Willow,” Buffy said. “Clearly we’re going to have to watch him for the next three days until we’re sure he’s clean.”

    “So you’re dropping him on me?” Spike asked, incredulous.

    “You’re the only one who’d know what to do with him if he was turned.”

    “Dust him,” Spike said flatly. “It’s bloody obvious. The demon’s a demon no matter how short it is.”

    “Yeah, but if he _isn’t_ turned, I don’t want him any more traumatized than he already is,” Buffy said. “He’s going to have to stay at your crypt until the quarantine’s over.”

    “This isn’t a disease, it’s a sodding demon,” Spike said. “I don’t want this thing all over my crypt.”

    “Why not?”

    “Because he’s supposed to be a meal, not a minion,” Spike said. He stared at Buffy seriously. “You have no idea how awful these things are. They’re too small to hunt properly, and too bloody stupid to protect themselves. Even Dru knew better than to try and turn them into dolls, they’re nasty. They’ll rip things apart, and walk into the sun if you don’t keep an eye on them.”

    “Well, you’re going to keep an eye on him, then, aren’t you.”

    “Buffy, I know this might be hard for you. You’re human, and he’s cute. If he turns, I’ll kill him for you–”

    “I didn’t say that!” Buffy snapped.

    “–but I’m not going to play nursemaid for your latest charity case.”

    Buffy came up to Spike and hit him in the nose with her free hand. He fell backwards against a gravestone, and Buffy sat down on him, straddling his legs, the boy still in her arms. “You listen here, Spike,” she said into his face. “I need your help, and you’re going to help me. You are going to take this child into your crypt and keep him there for _three whole days_. During that time, I’ll try to find out what house he came from, and if he has any family left alive. In the meantime, you are going to feed him, and change him, and keep him happy, and if I find you’ve locked him in a cage then so help me, I’ll find one big enough for _you_ and keep you there for a year! Do you hear me?”

    “Of course I hear you, you stupid bint,” he growled. “You’re sitting on my balls.”

    Buffy stood up hastily.

    “Fine,” Spike said. “I’ll bloody take him. But I’m going to need to sleep sometimes. If you don’t want me locking him up, you gotta come and take relief watch.”

    “Fine,” Buffy growled. She looked the boy over. He was still in diapers, and his little hands looked too uncoordinated to handle grown up cups. “I’m going to have to go to a store, buy some stuff for him. What do toddlers eat?”

    “I only know how to eat toddlers,” Spike said bluntly. “I have no sodding idea.”

    “That’s disgusting, Spike,” Buffy said.

    “Eating them’s just evil,” Spike pointed out. “ _This_ is disgusting.” He headed for his crypt, the kid under his arm like a sack of potatoes.

    It took Buffy a minute to realize he didn’t mean the child itself – he meant changing it to a _lapdog_.

 


	2. Kitty

  
    Back at his crypt, Spike climbed down the ladder and deposited the screaming kid on his bed. It had started crying about halfway home. Spike had been back at the crypt for an hour, and he was already about ten inches from losing his sanity. Any other child he’d ever been around who cried this much, and this loudly, would have already been hor d’oeuvres. But almost every time he tried to shake it to shut it up, his chip fired. A comforting friendly or gentle bounce from a human was not the same thing with vampire strength.

    “Dear god, kid, shut up,” Spike growled. He felt like he was going mad. Not only did the child keep screaming and crying like that – which was like driving nails into his head – it was so delicate that almost every time he got near it his chip fired – which pretty much was driving nails into his head. There was a time when sounds like the kid’s terror and unhappiness were pleasant to listen to, and if they weren’t, you could stick the kid in a trunk until it suffocated, or the noises were brought down to a reasonable level. Or you could just eat the thing. Unable to kill it because of the chip – and sort of unwilling to kill it because of Buffy – Spike had little recourse but to just sit and endure. The kid didn’t need a diaper change (he’d sort of checked) and if it was hungry, there wasn’t much Spike had available to offer it. It wasn’t going to like cocktail olives or lambs blood. He’d even tried a drop of whiskey on his finger, in the hopes he could get it tipsy enough to pass out, but without milk to mix it with, the kid wasn’t that dumb.

    The child’s screaming redoubled, and Spike lost patience. “Fine,” he said. “You can be loud? I can be louder!” He went over to his album collection and yanked out one of his Ramones records. He knew exactly what he wanted to listen to.

    Which was how Buffy found the two of them when she came down the ladder, the old junked record player blaring “Beat on the Brat” and Spike and the kid screaming at one another. “Bea on bat!” the kid squawked in the middle of Spike’s bed. “Bea on bat!” over and over and over, pretty much unable to differentiate between one section of the song and another, and Spike acting out a brutal murder in a macabre version of charades. “Beat on the brat with a baseball bat, oh, yeah! Oh, yeah!” When the song ended, the kid squawked. “Gan! Gan!”

    “Again?”

    “Yeah!” The little boy clapped his hands and Spike turned to lift the needle on his record player, catching sight of Buffy as he did so.

    If the vampire could have blushed, he’d have been redder than his over shirt. He scrabbled at the record, which was just starting up the next song, probably scratching it. “Buffy,” he said awkwardly. “Uh, I was just... playing the kid some music.”

    Buffy was trying extremely hard not to laugh, which was hard, as the little boy was laughing joyously while jumping up and down on the bed. “Bea on bat, bea on bat!” and another squeal of laughter.

    “Interesting choice. I’d have gone with the Sound of Music, personally, but hey, punk rock. Whatever.”

    “He liked it.”

    “You seemed to find it sort of cathartic,” Buffy said, still fighting a giggle. She gave up the struggle. “Not used to kids, are you,” she laughed.

    “Like you _are_?”

    “Not since Dawn was small. If implanted memories even count,” she said. She set the bag of groceries on Spike’s bed. “There’s two more bags upstairs,” she said. “Sorry it took so long, I had to go to the all night box store by the highway.” She looked in her grocery bag. “I’ve got juice boxes, toddler crackers, some basic stuff like cheese and apples, a thing of diapers – I think they’re the right size – sippy cups, some kind of weird compartmentalized dishes, and this.” She reached into the bag and pulled out a strange looking purple hedgehog.

    “What’s that for?”

    “It’s a spongey thing. To wash him with. He’s filthy. Oh, and some bandaids.” She looked down at the kid. “You want some juice?” she asked him.

    “Duce!”

    “Hey, he’s talking!” Buffy said, surprised at how pleased she was. “Punk rock therapy must be effective, he’s out of shock.”

    Spike smiled. He wasn’t sure it had anything to do with the magical healing power of the Ramones, and was afraid it had more to do with inadvertently making an ass of himself in front of the woman he loved, but hell. So long as she was happy. He hadn’t seen her happy in weeks.

    “Bring him upstairs. You got water?”

    “I can get some,” Spike said. “Here, I’ll get the bag.” He tried to take it from her arms.

    “No, I got it,” Buffy said. “You bring the boy.”

    “You get him,” Spike said.

    “I’m fine, just bring him up the ladder.”

    “Would you please just–” He tried to take the bag of groceries from her forcefully.

    “What is your _problem_!” Buffy snapped, all trace of her better mood gone. “I’ve got the damn groceries. Jeeze, what is it?”

    “I can’t... it’s hard to touch him.”

    “What the hell do you mean?”

    Spike pointed at his head with two fingers, almost as if it were an obscene gesture. “I can’t touch him! He’s... breakable. Just about every time I get near him I’m all – zzzt!”

    Buffy put the groceries down. This could be a problem. “I thought if there was no intent to harm, it wouldn’t fire.”

    “Yeah, well, obviously I’m just a little shaky around kids,” Spike said. “I guess I don’t _know_ what might or might not harm him.” He actually looked a little sad. “Besides, we know it has certain sensitivities.”

    “Like what?”

    “Like guns. I can’t even point a toy gun at someone, even when I know it’s a toy, so little kids are probably tilted way up on the sensitivity scale.” He threw up his hands in annoyance. “You think they’d give me an instruction manual or something.”

    “I don’t think they cared about that at the time. Besides, wouldn’t you just figure out how to turn it off if you knew how it worked?”

    “I do know how it works. Mostly. I know lots of ways to get around it, just not anything to do with _him_.”

    “You can get around it?” Buffy asked, suddenly nervous.

    “Come on, you think I’m an idiot? I could probably set up a dead fall trap and wait for victims like a spider, but I haven’t the patience. I’m more in to hitting things.”

    Buffy frowned at him. That thought hadn’t occurred to her. She suddenly realized that Spike was on animal blood, not because he couldn’t kill humans at all, but because he chose not to. That was an issue for another time. Right now they had to figure out how he could stop being tortured by a two year old. The boy was getting fussy, squawking unhappily and rolling around on the bed. Buffy reached into her grocery bag and pulled out a juice box. She stuck the straw in it and handed it to him, which she guessed would buy her about three minutes. “What sorts of things make it fire?”

    “Picking him up, moving him around, even getting too close a couple times. It’s bloody relentless.”

    “It didn’t fire when you first picked him up.”

    “I wasn’t thinking of him as a kid, then.”

    “What was he?”

    “A problem.”

    Buffy raised her eyebrows. “So, at what point did you actually realize he was human?”

    “When he started screaming,” Spike said.

    Buffy almost laughed again. “Try it now,” she said.

    “What?”

    “Try picking him up now,” she said. “He’s quiet. Just... be gentle about it.”

    Spike sighed, and reached for the boy, wincing in advance as if expecting him to bite him. He was surprised it didn’t hurt. The boy babbled something Spike couldn’t understand, and grabbed at Spike’s hair, but it was too short to get a grip on, and all he ended up doing was petting him with his tiny warm hand.

    “You okay?”

    “So far,” Spike said.

    Buffy smiled. “So, exactly how _badly_ did you want him to shut up, vampire?” she asked.

    Spike hadn’t actually realized that with every move he’d made he’d pretty much been wanting to kill the brat. It was such a natural impulse for him it hadn’t registered. He hadn’t held a child without killing it in over a century. “Oh, _you_ shut up,” Spike said ruefully, but it was without anger.

    The little boy kept petting at his impossible hair, with his other hand on the juice box. “Kitty,” he said.

 


	3. Person

  
    “Look, he’s gonna drown, will you hold him steady?”

    “He’s not gonna drown.”

    “Stop him flailing about, he’s getting water all over my crypt.”

    “Good. Maybe you’ll have an excuse to wash the floor.”

    “I don’t see you all keen on housework, Donna Reed.”

    “Who?”

    Spike rolled his eyes. Time to update his pop culture references. Again.

    The child was in a five gallon bucket, which Spike had filled with cold water from the watering spigot near his crypt, and warmed with boiled water from his plug-in kettle. He didn’t have anything like a stove – he didn’t actually _cook_. He hadn’t had to for a century, and it was only recently that he’d eaten much human food at all. Buffy had insisted on a bath for the boy, which hadn’t been a bad idea, as he was covered in blood and dirt and whatever else his captors hadn’t cared if he rolled in. “Damn. I don’t have a towel. Spike, you got any extra t-shirts?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Bring us up a couple.”

    Buffy dried the boy in one black t-shirt, put a diaper on him, and dressed him in another. “I forgot to get him any clothes,” she said. She looked around the crypt. “And where’s he going to sleep?”

    “Coffin,” Spike said.

    “I’m not putting him in a coffin!”

    “Hey, it’s cushioned, lined in silk, and he won’t roll out of it. I got two down below, they’ll do fine. It’s not like he cares what they are.”

    Spike dumped the water out the door of the crypt and came back in to find the kid on top of his sarcophagus, Buffy putting a bandaid on the boy’s neck. “The brat okay?”

    “Not bleeding,” Buffy said. She gave him the squeezed out hedgehog sponge to play with and looked up at Spike. “You have the chip under control, now?”

    Spike shrugged. “We’ll find out,” he said.

    “Listen, if it gets too much–”

    “If it gets too much, I’ll just have to wait for you,” Spike said. “There’s not much else to do. None of your Scoobies would survive as babysitter if he turns.”

    Buffy sighed. “I didn’t think making you babysitter was going to actually hurt you,” she said.

    “Hey, it is what it is. If it weren’t for the sodding chip, you wouldn’t trust me to watch him at all.”

    “If it weren’t for the chip, I couldn’t,” Buffy said. “Could I.”

    It wasn’t accusatory. It was serious, and Spike didn’t really have an answer. She seemed to be waiting for one, though. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not like natural blood lust turns you into a mindless animalistic automaton.”

    “Yeah,” Buffy said. “But it’s not as if you’d feel guilty, either.”

    “There are other motivations for not committing crimes besides guilt,” Spike said. He jumped behind her and caught the boy as he was about to fall off the edge of the sarcophagus.

    Spike set him on the floor, where he promptly found the puddle from his bath, and started to splash in it, getting his t-shirt wet. “Wet!” he announced. Spike sighed.

    “Like what?” Buffy asked.

    “Self-preservation. Common sense. Convention. I’m not an animal, I’m a vampire. I can actually make choices.”

    “It’s just you like to make evil ones.”

    Spike turned to her. “Why the hell are you asking this?”

    “Would you turn it off, if you knew how?”

    “The chip?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Doesn’t matter,” Spike said. “I’m used to it by now.”

    “Spike.”

    “Just let it go, it’s a stupid question.”

    “It is not a stupid question, it’s a moral one,” Buffy said.

    “Vampire. Amoral. You already said that.”

    “So, you’d choose to kill. You’d turn the chip off, and go hunting.”

    “It’s not that simple,” Spike said.

    “I just want to know if you’d still choose to turn it off.”

    “Of course I’d turn it off!” Spike snapped. “It’s bloody dangerous.” He glared at her. “It leaves me with one incredibly exposed flank, and a whole army looking in at it. I’ve gone through two world wars and countless smaller rebellions, you think I don’t know what a ticked off human could do to me, when I can’t fight back?” He shook his head. “I’m terrified,” he admitted. “Always. Feasting and killing aside, I’m terrified, Buffy. I went overnight from a god to a hunted rabbit. Yeah, I’d get rid of the damn thing.” He turned his head away and looked down at the corner of his crypt, composing himself. Finally, he seemed to realize he couldn’t. “Excuse me,” he said, turned away, and went down the ladder.

    Buffy hadn’t realized the enormity of what she was asking. Mostly, she just wanted to know if he still wanted to kill people. She hadn’t meant to almost make him cry.

    “Buppy. Buppy, I hungy,” the boy said, pulling at her shirt.

    Buffy looked down. The kid’s shirt was wet, and he looked cold. “Let me get you some... uh... cheese?”

    “No. Cookie.”

    “I should be strict,” she said. “But it’s three days. Eat whatever.” She pulled a little box of animal crackers out of the grocery bag, opened it, and handed it to him. He toddled off happily with it in his hand, and went to pull at some of the roots that were growing through the walls.

    Spike came back eventually with another spare t-shirt, and he and Buffy had to play a bit of a chase game to catch the kid in order to get it on him. He scampered about the room, spilling animal crackers left and right, shrieking with laughter. Buffy finally caught him and changed his shirt, and Spike used the wet one to mop up the puddle on the floor.

    “Sorry I cornered you like that,” Buffy said, still holding the wiggly child. “About the chip. It was just, when you said that spider thing, about laying traps....”

    “Yeah?”

    “Well, why don’t you? Or... are you? I mean... you’re not secretly....”

    “Like I’d tell you if I was, slayer,” he said with an amused smile. “That was another stupid bloody question. But no, I’m not finding inventive ways around the chip to go killing people. Like I said, there are other reasons not to commit crimes, and I’m bloody vulnerable. I got off human blood.” He shrugged. “That wasn’t what I needed about killing, anyway.”

    “What do you mean?”

    Spike looked up at the ceiling of his crypt. “There are two kinds of kill. One, I still do, albeit with demons and other nasties. That’s battle, that’s artistry, that’s the rush and the crunch and the joy in the power. It’s got sod all to do with blood.”

    “And the other?”

    “That’s the blood,” Spike said, and his voice was softer. “That’s... intimate. That’s taking a life and making it part of you. It’s heat and heartbeat and the gift in the death. In it’s own dark way, it’s like making love.” He glanced over at her, almost shyly, and then looked away. Buffy wanted to be disgusted – last year, she would have been. But after having died, a gift of death didn’t seem so bizarre anymore. And he sounded so wistful. “So, yeah, I could set up spider traps. They could kill people, I could wait and catch ‘em still fresh before they clot up, get all the human blood I’d want – presuming I was bloody hundreds of miles away from you at the time, slayer mine, ‘cause I know that would tick you off something royal,” he added with a smile. “But it’s dead blood.” He shrugged. “What’s the point?”

    “Doesn’t human blood... well, taste better?”

    He shook his head, dismissive. “I got off it,” he said. “It’s easier not to get on it again. Of course, blood banks get rid of old or just expired blood all the time, and you can imagine the black market for that here in Sunnydale is thriving. So I have actually _had_ human blood in the last few years. A taste here and there – and,” he interjected, probably reading her expression, “I’ve been told Angel used to as well, by the same dealers he used, so don’t get all holy about it. There’s no victim involved. But a shot or two of donor blood isn’t the same as going exclusively human. Think an ex-alcoholic having a glass of wine. I mean, it’s nice, but I’m gonna stop there, before things get ugly.” He gazed at her. “Getting off it wasn’t fun, pet. You were there, you saw me. It’s not worth getting hooked again, not for dead blood, when killing people would put me at risk from vengeful humans. And _you_.” He sighed. “I’ve had angry mobs after me before, I’d rather not try to survive one when I can’t fight back.”

    “So, it’s not a moral decision,” Buffy said.

    Spike rolled his eyes. “Does it _matter_?”

    “Only if you were a person, I guess,” Buffy said. She looked at the light growing outside, so didn’t see the wince he had at her words.“I gotta get home to Dawn. I’ve been out all night.” She looked at the kid, picking animal crackers up off the floor and stuffing them in his mouth. She looked daggers at Spike. “You are going to be all right with him, aren’t you?”

    “This was your sodding idea,” Spike said coldly. “If you doubt it now, take him with you.”

    “You know I can’t do that,” Buffy said. “Dawn, Willow, Tara.” She frowned. “Do you think Willow could cast a spell to see if he’s turning? I mean, reveal the demon early or something?”

    “You mean find out before you get attached?” Spike asked.

    Buffy’s next breath was a little shaky. “Something like that.”

    Spike shrugged. “Ask her. Let ‘em know you’re going to be playing baby-sitter, too. I’m not taking this brat on alone, no matter what you say.”

    “Right,” Buffy said. “I guess I should... tell Giles too...?” She did not sound as if she knew exactly what the best course was. “And I’m gonna need a nap...”She handed him the boy, and Spike took a deep breath. “I’ll be back by this afternoon. Or – maybe later this morning. I’ll be back today, I mean. I don’t... I’ll be back soon, okay?” She pointed her look directly at the boy. “Be back soon. Bye-bye!” she waved.

    “Ba-bye!” the boy said, waving. After Buffy closed the door of the crypt behind her, he looked up at Spike. “Where Buppy go?”

    “Bitch can go to hell,” Spike said.

    “Where Buppy go?” he asked again.

    Spike looked down at him. “You know, sometimes I ask myself the same question.” He turned on the telly. “Hell, if it isn’t early morning cartoons.” He sat down with the kid on his lap. “Amuse yourself.”


	4. Demons

    It was nearly eleven when Buffy got back to Spike, with Willow in tow. They opened the crypt to the image of Spike in his arm chair, in front of the television half asleep, with the boy in his lap, completely zonked. The boy’s wispy brown hair was all that was visible in the swath of black knit that was his and Spike’s t-shirts.

    Spike started as they came in, looked a bit embarrassed, and then realized he couldn’t just shove the kid away and pretend he hadn’t been holding him. “The brat passed out,” he said as Buffy turned off the television.

    Willow came up and looked down at the sleeping child. “Aww! He’s _cute_!” she said. “Do you _really_ think he could be a vampire? He’s so _cute._ ”

    “Right,” Spike said, looking sidelong at Buffy with a flirtatious smile. “Because all us vampires look like night of the living dead.”

    Buffy blushed, much to her own surprise, and cleared her throat. “Willow says she has a spell that can tell us if he’ll vamp up.”

    “Well, that’d be useful,” Spike said. “Can you do it now? Or...?”

    “Oh, yeah,” Willow said. “Um... I think I need him standing alone.”

    “Okay, um...” Spike tried to figure out the best way of extricating himself from the boy without waking him too harshly.

    “Oh, let me get him!” Willow said. She reached for the boy and picked him up.

    She was gentle, but the second the boy opened his eyes, he screamed anyway, shaking as if facing a nightmare. “What are... I didn’t do anything!” Willow cried.

    “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” the boy screamed.

    “He doesn’t know you,” Spike said, realizing the source of the trauma. Buffy and Spike had clearly rescued him from what must have been the most traumatic thing ever to happen in his life. Willow was a stranger, and this boy expected pain and murder from strangers.

    Buffy ran to his side. “Hey, hey, it’s okay! It’s okay, we got you!” she said, taking the child from Willow’s arms.

    “Want Mommy,” the kid whimpered, crying. “Want Mommy, Buppy.”

    It was such a pitiful plea that Buffy found tears in her eyes. “I know you do,” she said. “I know.” She still found herself at times wanting to break down into tears, crying out she wanted her mommy. Why did everyone demand she keep standing strong, the perfect slayer who always knew what to do, when all she wanted to do was just collapse? Sometimes it was all she could do to keep breathing. The boy kept crying.

    “Any luck on that front?” Spike asked quietly.

    Buffy shook her head. “No missing children reported to the police,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean...”

    “There’s no one left to report him,” Spike said darkly.

    “Don’t say that!” Willow said to Spike, as if his saying it would cause it to happen. “This little guy is gonna be just fine.”

    “Don’t say that,” Spike said back at her, pointedly. “You don’t know if it’s true.”

    Buffy looked from one to the other of them. There was some tension there she couldn’t put her finger on. “So, can you do the spell?” she asked Willow. She rummaged in the grocery bag and pulled out another juice box. The brat – the _child_ , she corrected herself, unwilling to be sucked into Spike’s dismissive name – seemed content with that, so she set him on the floor. He hid behind Spike, peeking suspiciously out at Willow.

    “Oh, yeah!” Willow said. She went over to Spike’s sarcophagus, and pulled out four sticks of incense. “Can you wave these around the room?” she asked Buffy after she’d lit them. “I need the smoke to saturate the air as much as possible.” She poured a bunch of crystals onto the surface of the sarcophagus and began to arrange them in an intricate pattern.

    Spike crouched on the floor, and the boy petted his hair again. “Kitty 'Pike,” the boy said.

    “So, this’ll tell us if he’s gonna turn,” Spike asked, looking doubtful.

    “Well, it should reveal any demons, or potential demons, in the area,” Willow said. “If the boy has a potential demon inside him, it should appear as an incorporeal image superimposed over his physical form.”

    “And if he doesn’t?”

    “Then nothing,” Willow said. “Buffy?”

    “Well, I waved it around a lot,” Buffy said, bringing the sticks of incense back.

    “Okay.” Willow stuck the incense into four black holders. “Can you put these around the boy?”

    “If he’ll stay still that long,” Buffy said. She set the incense on the floor, and Spike stood by the brat, making sure he didn’t touch the glowing end of the burning sticks. Which, of course, he instantly wanted to do.

    “Pwetty!”

    Willow was muttering something inaudible over her intricate checker board of crystals and stones. Her voice began to grow louder as she worked, and she gripped the edge of the sarcophagus as if she was trying not to be blown away by something. Then she lifted her head and shouted loud, her voice ringing in the echoing chamber. “ _Revelet daemones. Aperio_!”

    The room was suddenly filled with demons, hundreds of them, overlaid, merged, arms and legs sticking out of intangible torsos. Many kinds of demons, some of which Buffy recognized, most of which she didn’t. There was a sudden roar of rage and pain and hunger as the demons noticed them, and then they all attacked as one....

    Willow muttered something, and the demons vanished, apart from Spike, whose face had gone full dark. Though the demons appeared to be gone, the screams continued, in the form of a two-year-old child who had just been terrified out of his wits.

    The sound was excruciating, echoing around the concrete walls. Buffy went down to the boy and tried to comfort him, but he was having none of it. He was tense and flailing, still looking about the room for the monsters that had nearly attacked.

    The only monster there was Spike, who had grabbed Willow by the throat and pushed her up against the wall. He winced as his chip fired, but he was too angry to care. “What the _hell_ do you think you’re doing!” he growled at her.

    “Spike, leave her alone!” Buffy shouted at him.

    “You had no idea what that spell would do, did you!” Spike snarled at the witch. “You found a spell to reveal a demon and thought, oh, I’ll just fiddle with it. Pour enough power through it, it’ll do whatever the hell I want it to!”

    “Spike!” Buffy tried to get his attention, but her voice was simply an echo compared to the child’s screams.

    Willow actually looked terrified. Her face was white beneath her red hair. “I was doing what Buffy asked!”

    “If you couldn’t do it, you should have just said so!” Spike barked. “You decide to get your little witchy fingers into everything, whether you should or not, without bothering to figure out what the bloody _consequences_ will be! You just pulled a viable, reactive image of every potential demon out of every reality for _dozens_ of dimensions, you silly bint. They’ve all seen us here, whether they can cross dimensions or not. This crypt is probably still crackling with power. I’ll be fighting off curious invaders for _weeks_. Do you have any sodding clue–”

    “ _Repellendorum_ ,” Willow said, and Spike was shunted across the room, hard. He hit the wall across the crypt, slid down, and then launched himself upright, ready for a fight.

    “Stop it!” Buffy shouted. She abandoned the boy on the floor and stood between Spike and Willow. “Spike, calm down!”

    “Get out of my way!” Spike snarled.

    “You’ll only get hurt!” Buffy pointed out, which was true, one way or another – a witch she might have been, but Willow was still technically human. “And Willow, I think maybe you should–”

    But Willow’s blood was up, too. She pushed past Buffy, her hair moving as if stirred by wind, or hot air. “Powers of Ambrogio, goddess Selene–”

    “Gonna play it that way, are you?” Spike shouted.

    “Both of you!” Buffy intervened again, this time physically restraining Willow, turning her, dragging her attention to her. “Spike, go downstairs.”

    “I’m not gonna–”

    “Take the boy, and go downstairs!” Buffy barked.

    With a snarl Spike finally listened, scooping up the kid – to his even louder shrieks – and descending the ladder.

    “Willow, what was that spell?” Buffy asked.

    Willow seemed a little zoned.

    “Willow!”

    Willow shook her head, seeming to come out of it. “You said you wanted to know if the boy was turning to a vampire.”

    “Yeah.”

    “Well, there wasn’t a spell for it, but I knew one for revealing demonic powers within a given area, and I thought if I just altered it for potential, with a–”

    “So, you just _said_ you could do it, when you didn’t know?”

    “You asked me, you said you needed to know!” Willow said. “I thought I could.”

    Buffy closed her eyes. The boy was still screaming in the lower chamber. She wished she’d never brought Willow here. Whatever she might have been able to tell them, it wasn’t worth _this_. “Whatever,” Buffy said. “I’ve got to go sort this out.”

    “I’m sorry about the demons,” Willow said, collecting her bag from the floor and scooping her crystals back into it. “But Spike actually attacked me!”

    “He only held you,” Buffy said. “You pretty much attacked him.”

    “I didn’t–”

    “What do you call it, then?” Buffy asked. “Bringing a demon army into his home.”

    “An accident.”

    Buffy didn’t feel like she could deal with this just now. “Just go, I’ll see you at the house,” she said.

    “Buffy–”

    “Will you get out of here? I have a potential demon child to deal with.”

    Willow stalked out the door, but Buffy heard her parting words. “Did you mean the kid, or Spike?”

    Buffy closed her eyes, trying not to break down then and there. This was too much. She wished she was the boy, and could just start screaming and screaming and screaming.... Her vision faded to grey for a moment, and the sounds of the child’s screaming began to pulse into a roar of white noise, and the weight of the air, of the entire cursed world seemed so heavy around her, choking, suffocating, she was smothering in it, like the earth she’d had to claw her way out of....

    She opened her eyes a moment later to find herself squeezing her head with her hands, as if she could drown out the world. She took a deep breath, shook the sensation out of her head, and went down to deal with the current crisis.

    She came down the ladder to find the child on the bed, still screaming, but less loudly, and Spike pacing back and forth, his eyes still hooded in darkness. “Willow’s gone,” she told Spike. “You can calm down now.”

    “Calm down?” Spike said through his fangs. “ _After what she did_?”

    “I think your face is still scaring the kid,” Buffy said over his cries. “Can you go back human, at least?”

    “No, I bloody can’t,” Spike snapped. “That spell was like an electromagnet. She dragged it out of me, I’m stuck. I’m still humming with it.”

    “She dragged the demon out of you?” Buffy said. She had to raise her voice over the boy’s screams. “Shouldn’t that mean there isn’t one in the kid?”

    “We don’t know what it means!” Spike snarled. “When she didn’t have a spell for what she wanted, she just tried to make one up on the fly. She just added power and ripped a window through dimensions, with no more thought than you or I would put into adding ice to our drink. She doesn’t look beyond the surface, can’t care past what she wants, and has no idea about the bleeding _consequences_ of her actions!”

    “Spike, I agree she should have told me she couldn’t do it, but–”

    “No buts!” Spike yelled. “I’m sick of her and your bloody Scoobies going behind my back, and then acting like I should be grateful they treat me like the sodding watch dog!”

    “Spike!” Buffy yelled back. “Can we just calm the kid?”

    Finally Spike stopped his pacing and took a deep breath. “Maybe you should take him out of here till this wears off,” he said.

    “Will it?” Buffy asked.

    Spike shrugged. “Probably,” he said. He rubbed his forehead. “Hope so. It’s making my face ache.”

    Buffy left the kid gasping – he’d been crying so long he was running out of energy for it – and went up to Spike. “Let me see.”

    “Buffy–” Spike stopped his protest when he realized he didn’t care what she did to him, so long as she was close to him. Buffy reached up with both hands and touched his forehead with her fingertips, smoothing along his eyebrows with her warm skin, gently caressing the vampiric flesh down along his cheekbones. Spike closed his yellow eyes for a moment at her touch, and then gazed upon her in wonder until they slowly faded back to his own normal blue. Buffy felt the hard demonic flesh soften beneath her fingers, and Spike slowly morph into himself again, with her hands caressing him. They were very close. Spike made a small movement with his head, possibly the beginning bend of a kiss, but Buffy pulled away – not hurriedly, but definitively. He didn’t seem disappointed.

    They both turned back to the boy, who was still crying. “Hey, now, come on,” Buffy said, sitting down on one side of the bed.

    Spike sat on the other. “If he did have any demon in him, that spell probably hurt,” he said.

    “Either way, it scared him silly,” Buffy said. “He’s had enough trauma as it is.”

    “Ahug!” the boy was crying out. “Ahug! Ahug!”

    Buffy reached out when she interpreted. The boy clambered into her lap in exhausted desperation and collapsed against her chest, still weeping. Buffy held him gently, rocking him side to side. “You can have a hug,” she said. “You can have all the hugs you want. It’s okay. It’s all over. The monsters are all gone now.”

    “For the most part,” Spike said.

    Buffy glanced up at him. “They’re all gone,” she said again.

    As the boy’s tears faded into exhaustion, Spike reached out and touched his hair. What he really wanted to do was touch Buffy – he had found her soothing of his vampire flesh incredibly intimate – but he knew he didn’t quite have the right to. “You know, even if he’s not gonna turn, this kid’s gonna have some demons.”

    “Yeah?”

    Spike looked at her. “Trauma, nightmares, I’ll bet his parents are cold meat.”

    “Don’t say that,” Buffy said, looking uncomfortable.

    Spike shrugged. “It’s true,” he said, still petting the boy in her arms. “This is nasty business.”

    The boy was pale and shaken, and cuddled against Buffy as if he was hiding from the world. He didn’t seem to mind Spike petting him. Buffy looked up at him. “You were pretty mad at Willow.”

    “I’ve been pretty mad at Willow for months,” Spike said. “This was just the last straw.”

    “What were you angry about?”

    Spike looked at her with an eyebrow raised. “What do you think?”

    Buffy sighed. “She meant well,” she said, her voice soft and pained as it always was when she thought about her resurrection. “They all did.”

    “Yeah, well, she meant well behind my back,” Spike said. “They all did.”

    “They didn’t tell Dawn, either,” Buffy said.

    “They didn’t tell Dawn because they didn’t want to disappoint her. They didn’t tell Giles, because they knew he’d try to stop them. They only didn’t tell me because they didn’t bloody want to.”

    “You don’t know that.”

    “Yeah, I do. They still don’t trust me.”

    Buffy looked up at him. “Can you blame them?”

    Spike’s eyes narrowed. “I came at their beck and call like a bloody attack hound, all damn summer. They use me when they like, and treat me like dirt when they’re done. They wanted my strength, they didn’t want me. I might as well have been their whore.”

    “That’s a little harsh.”

    “Fine,” Spike said. “Hired gun. But they’re not my friends.”

    Buffy considered this. “What if they had told you?” she asked.

    “What do you mean?”

    “Giles would have tried to stop them,” Buffy said. “But what if they had told you?”

    Spike was silent for a long moment. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I helped the niblet when she wanted your mum back,” he said. “But I knew that spell. It wasn’t a permanent retrieval, and it was easily undone. Manifest spirit sort of thing, bound to the photograph, tangible, but still one foot in the grave, as it were. Break the talisman, rip the photo, and she’d rubber-band right back to where she came from.”

    Buffy almost sobbed at the thought that a single tear or snap could send her back to heaven. Why couldn’t Willow have done _that_ sort of spell? While it was comforting to know that Dawn’s dabbling in the afterlife couldn’t have disturbed her mother’s peace for long, it was heartbreaking that such a release wasn’t available for herself.

    “I just figured Joyce would get the chance to say her goodbyes before she asked to go again. I mean, spirits don’t age, they don’t really live, so they don’t usually want to stay long unless something specific is unfinished. Joyce was a sensible lady. She’d give you both a hug, get the chance to say she loved you. Maybe impart some last wisdom. And if it didn’t work clean, if the spirit was corrupted, or there was some kind of hitchhiker, it could go right back with no harm done to her spirit. But that was a very different spell. Willow wanted you _alive_.”

    “So what if you had known what they were trying to do?” Buffy asked. “Would you have helped them?”

    Spike stared at her. “It’s not a fair question,” he said at last. “You know how I feel about you. But you also know I know you’re unhappy. So anything I say will be suspect. I _didn’t_ know. That’s all I can say.”

    “What did you think when you saw...?”

    “When I saw you were back?” Spike said. “You mean, did I think it good or bad?”

    “Yeah.”

    Spike shrugged. “I try not to think that much. I had accepted your death.... I know death. It never even occurred to me to think beyond the grief. I know that magic has consequences – I’m not sure Willow does.” He shook his head. “Really, all I could think was that I wanted to hold you.” He reached out and touched the boy again, snuggled against Buffy in a way that Spike longed to be, and knew he probably never would.

    Buffy wanted to say something flippant and dismissive, ignoring the confession of his feelings, but she couldn’t think what it could be. She didn’t feel amused, or disgusted, or annoyed, or any of the other things she used to feel about Spike. “Do you think he’s okay now?” she asked instead.

    “We’ll know if he lets us take him back upstairs,” Spike said.

    “Lets get some lunch in him, somehow,” Buffy said. “And then... it’s past your bedtime, isn’t it.”

    “Long past. But I can live without sleep if I have to.”

    “I thought you said I needed to relive you on child care.”

    “That was before Willow decided to open the gates of hell, on a lark,” Spike said. “I’m starting to feel like the brat actually _needs_ protecting.”

    “I can do that,” Buffy said. “You sleep. I think this little guy and I will be okay for the afternoon. Don’t you?” she asked the boy.

    “Hug Buppy,” was all he said, snuggling in close. His face was still tear-stained and tragic. “Hug Buppy.”


	5. Wild Things

  
    Spike slept in the lower chamber while Buffy watched the boy. He was quite cuddly after the trauma of his morning, and Buffy spent a lot of time feeding him cookies and string cheese, and sippy cups of juice, while watching daytime television. It was actually pleasant. He was warm and snuggly and his demands were concrete and easily met. Clean pants, food, drink, companionship. It was very simple – unlike with everyone else. Spike only napped for about four hours. When he came up out of the lower chamber, he took over the boy while Buffy went home to make sure Dawn had something available for dinner.

    Buffy came back two hours later with a quart of milk for the child, and a couple of children’s books salvaged from a box in her basement. They fed the boy dinner – or actually, more cookies and some milk, while he ignored dinner – and watched television until Buffy saw him yawn. “I think he’s tired. Were you serious about putting him in a coffin?” Buffy asked.

    “It’s not that bad,” Spike said. “I’ll make it up with pillows and stuff, you’ll see.” He took the boy and headed down to the lower chamber. Buffy followed with one of the kid’s books in her hand.

    While Spike dug out a pillow and blankets and an old stuffed bear from one of his trunks, Buffy settled the child on Spike’s bed with her and pulled out the book. The boy looked overjoyed at the prospect of being read to.

    "Bok, bok," the brat said happily. "Weed bok."

    "Okay, okay," Buffy said. She pulled the boy into her lap. "Where the Wild Things Are," she began. "By Maurice Sendak. The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind... and another... his mother called him, 'Wild thing!' And Max said, 'I'll eat you up!'"

    "Sounds like my kinda kid," Spike interjected.

    Buffy's eyes flickered to him. Then she continued, pointedly, "So he was sent to bed. _Without. Eating. Anything._ " She cast her glare at Spike for another second, long enough to catch his wink, and she was hard put not to laugh.

    Spike refrained from comment during the rest of the book, but he leaned against one of his coffins, watching her with a strange little smile on his face. "And Max, the king of all wild things, was lonely, and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all."

    The brat demanded that she read the book again when she was done, and she agreed twice more before putting her foot down. "No. That's enough."

    "Wild ting. Wild ting!" the brat announced.

    "Wild thing, I think I love you," Spike said, his voice affectedly husky. He turned to his turn table and changed the record. "But I wanna know for sure!" he added. A second later, the distinctive riff of The Troggs' "Wild Thing" echoed from the speaker. "Dun na na – duh na – duh na na," Spike sang along, and scooped the kid off Buffy's lap. "Wild thing!" he sang into the kid’s face. "You make my heart sing... you make _everything groovy_." He swung the kid along with the music, and the brat shrieked with laughter. "Wild thing!"

    Buffy was unexpectedly drawn to the reckless abandon of the two, and after the first verse she stood up, joining in their little impromptu dance party. "Wild thing, I... think you move me!" Spike and Buffy growled at each other along with the music. "But I wanna know for sure!" Buffy took the boy back and squeezed him. "So come on and hold me tight!" The boy had figured the song out already, and hugged Buffy affectionately around the neck. "You move me!"  
  


***

    They'd managed to get the kid to settle down after a while, though it included another three run throughs of Wild Thing, and two renditions of Beat on the Brat. Finally they got him settled into the open coffin, the blanket over him, and sort of falling asleep. Buffy had to sit with him a bit longer, but when he finally seemed asleep, she stood up and climbed back up the ladder to Spike's upper chamber.

    Spike had ascended a bit before, to provide fewer distractions, as he said, "In the hope the wretched kid will finally get the hint and shut up." The words were harsh, but the tone he'd spoken them in wasn't. Buffy found him with a beer in front of the television, turned down quite low, so as not to discourage sleep in the lower chamber.

    "He out?"

    "Just about, I think," Buffy said. "Still twitching, but I don't think he's getting up again."

    "You want them twitching," he said. "Not twitching is usually a bad sign." He tensed as if about to get up. "You want a beer?"

    "I'll get it," Buffy said. She went to his fridge and pulled a bottle of beer out from beside a mason jar of blood. Spike turned off the television and regarded her. "So who's on night shift?" she asked.

    "I can take him," Spike said, “if you’d rather patrol. One more night to check on those new graves, wasn’t it?"

    "You sure?"

    "Hey, he's sleeping, how much trouble could he be?" They both stared at each other as Spike realized he'd said the worst possible thing to tempt the fates. "Can we forget I said that?" he asked.

    Buffy laughed. "You're really settling in to this father role."

    "Call me that one more time, I dare you. I'm sure I can find a dog kennel for the brat _somewhere_."

    "Okay, okay," Buffy said. "Bad boy uncle."

    "Marginally better," Spike said. He shrugged. "Brat likes music." The truth was, he found it much easier to translate the affection that he wanted to show to Buffy to the boy, particularly while Buffy was around. It wasn’t that he wanted her to be impressed by it – he just had many more instincts to be tender if Buffy was anywhere near, and she’d never accept it from him. It seemed to be working, too. She seemed to feel a little better than usual, with the kid around. He regarded her, his head tilted. "I haven't seen you cut loose like that in a while," he pointed out.

    Buffy sighed and perched on the edge of Spike's sarcophagus. "Life's felt... kind of heavy, lately. I don't know. He's young, it seems to rest pretty lightly on his shoulders. It's nice to see."

    "Yeah, it is," Spike said. "It's nice to see you smile. You don't smile so much as you used to." Buffy rolled her eyes, and Spike quickly added, "I mean, he seems to bring it out of you. Kind of lighten whatever it is you're carrying." He shrugged. "That can’t be a bad thing, can it?"

    "It's not him, it’s here,” Buffy said. “It’s easier here.” She looked around. “I guess once you’ve died, some part of you feels you belong in a crypt. I always used to wonder why you didn’t just get an apartment or something. It makes more sense now.”

    “I can’t get a normal job,” Spike said conversationally, lighting a cigarette. “They don’t issue social security numbers for people born in England in the eighteen hundreds.” He gestured at the spacious crypt. “Keeps the rain off, and I intimidate the groundskeeper into staying out, keep the electricity on, the watering spigot available for me. It’s not like I need central heating. And I agree to keep the other vamps out of the cemetery, for the most part, and he hates them. He thinks they’re moles.” Spike grinned. “Or he pretends he does. I can’t afford a human place, love. I have to stay kind of underground, as it were, avoid the wrong kind of human attention, and I don’t have enough to pay law enforcement off. A hundred and twenty-some years, enough angry mobs or bigger baddies get hold of you, they take all you got. I’ve had to pick up and move so often, it’s not like I have a fortune hidden away. If I needed something, I used to just steal it, take it from my victims. I never had to keep anything. Angel kept a secret fortune, but I was always too wild for that.” He cocked his head at her. “So it’s the crypt, huh? Just the crypt?”

    “You mean not the company?” Buffy asked. She shrugged. “It’s easier with you, too. You're not watching my every move, demanding I go back to my old self. I wish they'd just let me be... but they're always just _right there_ , and I have to put on a happy face and bounce up all perky. How did I do that all the time?" she asked. "I remember when it was so easy, it all seemed natural." She closed her eyes. "God, I'm just so tired. I'm always so tired."

    "You have a right to be," Spike said quietly. He stood up. "You know what? Kid's asleep down there. You go take a nap, I'll check the new graves."

    "That's not right. I'm the slayer."

    "You've got to be slayer, mum, and head of the household at the moment, with two college kids, a high schooler, and a toddler on your hands. I can stake a bunch of newborns. I've been itching to kill something all day."

    Buffy shook her head, but a small smile crept onto her face. "This is just an attempt to get me into your bed, isn't it."

    "Not _really_ worth it if I'm not there, too," Spike said, "but the idea doesn't repulse me, no."

    Buffy was extremely tempted. "You'll wake me when you get back? I should... really check in on Dawn."

    "I can check on Dawn before I head back."

    "No, that's–"

    "She's with the birds, she'll be fine. Me, or the kid, we'll wake you before first light, you can be back to see she's off to school okay."

    It sounded incredibly logical. Sleep while the kid was sleeping, wake up in the morning. It sounded _normal_. "You patrol," she said. "I'll _think_ about a nap."

    Spike set his beer down and shrugged on his coat. "Sleep!" he commanded her, pointing at her like an errant puppy. "I'll be back before dawn." He paused at the door. "If you do nap, keep a stake in the bed," he said. "If he turns while you're out..."

    "I'm pretty sure I'll wake up if I'm bit by a vamp, even a tiny one," Buffy said. "And I survived a bite by the Master, I think I can survive him. I'll smell pretty good, right? He'd want me more than to run away."

    "Yeah," Spike said. "Yeah. Just to be safe." He did not sound flippant. The door clanged as he left.

    Buffy realized this _was_ getting serious. If the kid had changed that first day, neither of them would have been too bothered. It would have been disturbing, but not heartbreaking. But the brat had a personality now, and interests, and affection for both of them. He'd brought something out between them all that Buffy didn't even want to name. He'd...

    He'd had her up, dancing and singing to sixties rock with Spike. Where the hell had that come from?

    Buffy went back down the ladder with her beer and looked in the satin lined coffin at the sleeping toddler. Did he look paler than before? She didn't even want to contemplate it.

    She took a swig of her beer, and looked over at Spike's bed. It looked quite inviting, actually. She was always wanting to sleep. She hated it when Giles called her in to discuss training during the day. She usually forced herself awake to get Dawn off to school, and then once Willow and Tara left, she'd sneak back into bed and let the world go away again. Facing it was just so damned difficult...

    She was drawn to the vampire's bed like to an illicit drug. She didn't quite have the abandon to snuggle in under the covers, but she grabbed two of his pillows and dragged them down to the foot of the bed. Spike's pillows smelled of residual peroxide and Spike. It was a surprisingly comforting scent. She lay a stake on the edge of the bed, and stuffed the pillows under her head as she lay on her stomach, her eyes ostensibly on the coffin and the sleeping child.

    They didn't stay open for long. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone who follows my stories knows where the bear came from. My thanks to Maurice Sendak, whose words and characters I have no claim to.


	6. Monsters

  
    Spike returned well before first light. All was well at Buffy's house – he'd checked in, reminding Willow about the brat, and cracked a few jokes with Dawn. Then he went to check out the new graves and staked a couple of fresh vamps. "Sorry, mate," he said, as he'd helped a newborn out of the earth and staked him in a fluid movement. "Trust me, you're better off." He'd looked down at the dust coating his boots. "Coming back just messes you up."

    Buffy was asleep on his bed when he returned, as he'd hoped she'd be. She'd eschewed his blankets, and was sprawled atop them, her arms wrapped around his pillow. She looked so young and so vulnerable asleep. Compared to him, there wasn't much difference in age between the brat, sleeping safely in the coffin, and the young woman on his bed.

    He went up to her softly, feeling just a little bit the stalker, but hell, it was his own damn bed. He reached out for her, but didn't quite touch her. His hand hovered over her shoulder, just feeling the miasma of her body heat on his cold flesh. The thought of touching her sent a flare of desire through him, and he swallowed it down. He caressed the heat of her body without touching her, sliding down to her hip, and then back up, over her shoulder, down her bare arm. The bare arm looked cold, all alone atop the covers. He reached over her and folded the blanket sideways, barely covering her in the dank crypt. She stirred, and Spike froze mid-motion, but she didn't wake. He finished tucking her in, and heard her hum in her sleep, some dream, or some unconscious recognition of the security of blankets. He restricted himself to _imagining_ kissing her gently goodnight.

    Then he went and checked the brat, who was also sleeping, more fitfully than Buffy. He looked pale. Spike didn't like it, but he hadn't ever _watched_ a lapdog turn before. It wasn't the sort of thing he'd put up with in any of his lairs. The kid was bound to be odd, quite literally ripped from his parents and dropped in a crypt with a bloodsucking demon. Spike tucked him in, too, poured himself a drink, and settled in on the floor with a book, in a position where he could see both Buffy and the brat when he looked up.

    He had to admit to himself, he spent far more time glancing up at Buffy than he did the child he was supposed to be monitoring.   
    

***  
  
    A little before dawn, by Buffy's internal clock, a slight noise woke her. "Shh, sh sh," Spike was whispering. "Come on. Don't wake Buffy, I got you. I got you." She heard movement as the boy was lifted, carried across the chamber, fussing a little. "Just hang on, kid. Up we go."

    Spike took the child upstairs to tend to it. Buffy tried to get up immediately, but there were no further noises that ripped her out of her sleep, and she felt really comfortable... warm, and this heady scent surrounding her, and the crypt was so peaceful....

    She didn't really go back to sleep, but it took her a good fifteen minutes before she actually opened her eyes, rolled onto her back, and stretched. She looked down and realized Spike had pulled the covers over her while she slept. She wanted to be annoyed that he'd lurked above her, but she found herself touched.

    She got up slowly, and climbed the ladder. Spike was in the middle of his crypt, the child snuggled into his arms, against his chest. Spike was humming something. The song wasn’t punk rock or death metal. It was softer, older, some sort of folk tune. Spike looked genuinely concerned, his face softer than she was used to seeing it. She watched them for a long moment. Not for the first time, she wondered what kind of man Spike had really been, back when he was still just William. Sometimes she got the impression of someone very different from the big bad she’d always known. Just an echo of someone she didn’t quite recognize.... “He okay?” Buffy asked, climbing out onto the floor.

    Spike shook his head. “He’s fussy. I changed him, tried to give him some milk, but... he doesn’t want it.”

    “Do you think he’s...?”

    “I have no idea,” Spike said. “You go on home. We’re good here.”

    “You haven’t slept.”

    “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” Spike said with flat irony. “You go on. Get Dawn off to school.”

    It was an order. Buffy wanted to protest, but couldn’t think how. “Okay,” she said. “I’ve got a parent teacher conference at two-thirty, but I’ll be back this afternoon.”

    “We’ll be fine,” Spike said. “Cartoons start in half an hour.”

    Buffy left, and Spike heaved a sigh of relief. He sang to the boy, his human warmth heavy against his chest, but the warmth did little to satisfy Spike’s suspicions. Heart rate elevated, temperature off, pale. If he was turning, he hoped he’d do it while Buffy was gone. It was too late now to keep her from getting attached, but she shouldn’t have to see it. He wished he could know in advance. “Okay, kid,” he said. “Let’s try this.” He went over to his fridge and pulled out his last mason jar. He opened it and held it to the boy’s lips.

    Spike was relieved when the kid scorned the blood as avidly as he’d turned away from the milk. He flailed, and the glass jar was knocked out of Spike’s hand, falling to shatter on the concrete floor. Spike looked down at the spilled blood and sighed. He hadn’t eaten. Still... better that than have the brat turning. He shifted the boy on his hip and went back to singing.   
  


***  
  
    Buffy was late coming back to Spike’s. The parent/teacher conference had gone longer than she’d thought. Someone had accused Dawn of stealing a book that belonged to a classmate, and Buffy had to field that discussion, standing up staunchly to defend her sister. It took well over an hour. She was exhausted when she left the meeting, ready to do nothing so much as go right back to bed, but she dutifully shook the weariness from her eyes and headed back to Spike’s.

    She found Spike and the boy in the lower chamber. “Shh,” Spike said as she climbed down. “He’s down for a nap. He’s been fussy today.”

    Spike looked paler than usual. “You okay?”

    “I’m out of blood,” Spike said. “I took the last of it yesterday.”

    “You gonna be okay?”

    Spike shrugged. “I’ve just been stuck here, I haven’t been able to go get any before the stores close. The butchers close at seven.”

    “You’ve got an hour if you go now. You can take the tunnels, right?”

    “For most of it,” Spike said. “But I’m needed here.”

    “You’ve been sending me away from this for days,” Buffy said. “I got you into it, I should take my turn.”

    “No, I’m fine.”

    “No, you’re not,” Buffy said. “What is it, don’t you trust me?”

    Spike sighed, looking doubtful. He did feel pretty wonky. “You sure?”

    “I’m sure.”

    Spike frowned. “Okay. Don’t try to wake him. Just... keep a stake handy, will you? If he wakes up all fangy, those things can leap like monkeys, and their bite’s just as strong as mine. They stop being babies and get all coordinated.”

    “I’ll be careful,” Buffy said. “Slayer, remember?”

    “Right,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.” He grabbed his coat and headed into the shadows at the edge of the chamber.

    It wasn’t until quite a bit after he left that Buffy realized Spike had pretty much given her bad news. Whatever was going on with the boy, Spike didn’t like it. She went to the coffin and looked down at the child. He was very pale, and his eyes were shadowed. Buffy decided this was silly. She reached down and picked him up.

    The boy shifted lethargically, and wrapped his arms around Buffy’s neck. He cried weakly, his head lolling on her shoulder. He didn’t feel so warm as he used to....

  
***  
  
    Spike came back within the hour with a paper bag of blood filled jars. Buffy had put the child back into his coffin, unsure whether keeping him wrapped around her neck was a good idea. She’d put the blankets over him and kept petting him, rubbing his back through the oversize black t-shirt, stroking his wispy brown hair. “Spike,” she said when he came up. “This doesn’t look good.”

    “I know it doesn’t,” Spike said. He set the blood on his bed and came up to her. “It hasn’t looked good all day.”

    Spike looked at Buffy. Buffy swallowed. "He won't really wake up," she said. "He'll stir a bit, but... he just lies there. I think he... Spike, is he...?”

    Spike reached out and touched the child’s throat. He had a very low body temperature, and his heartbeat was rapid, and pitifully weak. “He’s dying,” Spike said. He sounded so damn sure.

    “Are you...?”

    “I know death, Buffy.”

    Buffy swallowed. “What do we do?"

    Spike gazed at her. "What do you think we do?" he asked. "I told you what we'd have to do."

    Buffy glared at him. "It's not right."

    "No. No, it's not," he said. "It's evil. I thought you understood that."

     "Isn't there something else we could do with him?" Buffy asked. "I don't want to just dust him, it's cruel." Buffy clenched her fists, wishing this was something she could fight. "Couldn't you... I don't know. Just keep him? We could keep him here."

    Spike raised his eyebrow. "What, fill his sippy cup with the blood of the lamb, and hope to god he never gets out to play with the other kiddies? He's still a vampire, love. He's still a kid. Kids are drawn to kids, you know that. He's got vampire strength, and even _if_ we got him all gypsy cursed with a soul, he'd have no conscience – kids don't. They want a marshmallow, they take it. He wants blood, he'll take it. He gets ticked off at you, he'll break your arm. Normal kids bite, what the hell do you think that kind of demon spawn will do?"

    “Yeah, but we could... somehow we could make it so he... we could teach him... not to....”

    “Like you’ve taught me?” Spike said. “How good am I, pet? Be honest.”

    Buffy knew the answer, but she didn’t like it.     

    He stepped toward her. "There is no motivation he will ever understand, moral or not, for not grabbing what he wants when he sees it. He'd never grow up, Buffy. He'd never know better. He’d hunt, and he’d kill, and he’d feed. If you _could_ find a way to stop him, then all his life would be is pain and longing, for blood, for understanding, for another like him, for the sunshine and kiddies he can no longer play with, and there'd be _nothing_. Talk about cruel. Are you really prepared to torture him like that? For eternity?"

    "It's still not right," Buffy said.

    Spike shook his head. "No. No, it isn't. I never thought it was right, not now, not ever. The first time I saw a lapdog, I was disgusted. Any of my minions ever brought one home, I dusted them both, in a blink." He came up closer to her. "I told you not to get attached."

    Buffy turned back to the pale child. “It shouldn’t happen.”

    “No, it shouldn’t. But it did. He’s dying, Buffy.” Spike said what he’d been hoping he wouldn’t have to say. “Don’t force him to keep living when he’s meant to be... finished.”

    He knew it was a strike below the belt, but it had to be done. Buffy winced, and her head bowed. She took a deep breath, then lifted her head a completely different person. “You said you'd do it," she said. Her face was hard as stone, and her eyes had turned to iron.

    "Yeah," Spike said, without feeling. "I can do it."

    Buffy swallowed, already battling tears. "We'll do it gently. I'll... I'll sing to him. Hold him. If you come up... from behind him, we'll... we'll...."

    "No," Spike said. "You're getting out of here."

    “What?”

    “You’re getting out of here. Now. Before he’s finished dying.”

    Buffy turned to him. "I have to do this," she said. "I made you do this. I have to see it through."

    "No."

    "What do you mean, no?"

    Spike stared at her. "I can't do it with you looking."

    His voice bristled, but not with anger. She couldn't understand. "Why not?"

    "I don't have a soul, Buffy," he said. "I don't have a conscience, I don't keep human morals. You do."

    "What do you mean? What's that got to do with it?"

    "I can't do it with you looking," he said again.

    Buffy lost her temper, then. "I'm a slayer!" she growled. "It's my job to rid the world of vampires!"

    "And if you turn around and walk away, there will be one fewer in the world," he said. "That's all you have to do. Turn around, walk away, and the evil will be gone. You win."

    "You just want to revel in killing an innocent all by yourself," Buffy snapped.

    "Believe what you want, but go."

    "Why the hell should I?"

    "Do you _really_ want to be here?" Spike asked. "Really? Is that really something you want in your head? To watch the stake go in, to see his flesh melt and his tiny bones turn to ash, to catch that wiff of demonic dust, and sweep up that pitifully tiny pile afterwards? Is that really what you want flashing behind your closed eyes as you go to bed tonight?"

    "You don't have to be so graphic about it!"

    "You think singing him to sleep will make you feel better about it? It won't. This isn't prince Hamlet, he doesn't need flights of angels, he just needs it to end."

    "It's not fair!"

    "No, it isn't!" Spike yelled. "It's never fair! It's evil! That's the point! The demons come from out of the dark, and they drain you dry and fill you up with sin, and you become another carrier to spread more evil after them! You crawl up out of the earth to an unlife of darkness and death, and it's never, ever _fair_." He was shouting into her face, now, all but a physical attack, and Buffy reacted. She hit him, hard.

    "Good girl," he said, after staggering back a few steps. He came back to her. "Do it again."He came right up into her face, and she did. She almost couldn't help it. "That’s right, hit the demon!" he barked, as his head lolled. She did. "Again!" She blacked his eye, that time. He staggered back and pointed expansively at the coffin. "Now do it to him!" he shouted.

    Buffy froze, her fists still clenched.

    "Or get the hell out of here, and leave me to."

    Buffy blinked, the anger still rising.

    "We're both vampires," Spike snarled. "Same evil demon. What's the bloody difference?"

    Her lip quivered as she realized there wasn't any at all. She didn't make the decision, she just backed away from him, found herself at the ladder, and started to climb.

    She wondered every step of the way home – as she crossed his crypt, as she closed the door, as she reached the edge of the cemetery, as she crossed the street – if that was the moment when he'd done it.

    She was three blocks from the cemetery when she threw up. She hadn't done that since she was fifteen – not about the slaying. She was still new to all the death, and she'd just killed some classmate who had been turned; the first time she'd known the vampire she dusted. It was disgusting then. It was disgusting now. It was evil, it was so evil. Turning innocents into monsters, yes. Then turning humans into slayers so they could get rid of the monsters, turning yet one more innocent into a different kind of monster.

    That was why Spike wanted her gone, she realized. It wasn't because he missed killing innocents – every vampire just out of the grave was still, technically, an innocent until they killed their first victim. But he didn't want her to have to do it. It was to keep that image out of her head. To keep her from the monstrous act. To keep _her_ from having to be the monster.

 


	7. Crickets

  
    Buffy couldn’t sleep. She didn’t mention the brat to anyone at home, and no one else seemed to think about it. She tried to go through the motions, as she always did – dinner, check on Dawn’s homework, go over finances and choose which things were urgent, and which could be delayed. It distracted her for a while. But in the darkness, alone, the boy’s pale face haunted her.

    Sometime after midnight, she came in and snuggled up to Dawn. She remembered when Dawn was the brat's age. She herself had been only a few years older, but she had a memory – implanted or not – of snuggling against Dawn's soft, still babyish cheek, feeling the warmth of her tiny body, hearing her little laugh. All of that had been brought back these last few days with Spike and the brat. Life. Pure, burgeoning life. Music and stories and dancing and snuggling and sleep, tucked in and cared for. All of it seemed so very far away from her.

    It was even farther now.

    Dawn opened her eyes and looked up at her. "What's up?"

    "Nothing," Buffy said. "Go back to sleep."

    "What's wrong?"

    Buffy kissed her sister's forehead. "I just wanted a hug. Nothing's wrong. Not anymore." She meant it. The brat was dust by now. She was sure of it. She buried her nose in Dawn's hair, and Dawn hummed a bit and went back to sleep.

    She'd needed Dawn because she was a gift. A tender, innocent memory, a warm and loving family. The best thing she'd ever gotten from being the slayer – strength, agility, instinct, adventure, all of that she could have done without. But Dawn... no. Dawn she wouldn't trade back. It wasn't right that people had to become monsters, in order to stop the monsters that had once been people. Sometimes she really hated being a slayer.

    And Spike... she didn’t know how she’d face him after this. He’d done things a thousand times more evil than dust a newborn vampire lapdog. He’d done them thousands of times. But how was she going to be able to look at him, when the memory of music and laughter beside him – this tiny, happy moment in the middle of her darkness – had been turned to ash? She was afraid that she’d never really be able to forgive him for it.

    And she was so glad he’d been there to do it.

    Her heart hurt.

    She dozed for a while, drifting in and out of consciousness. She couldn't quite find sleep. She didn't know if it was her troubled mind, or Dawn's breathing, but even without sleep she wasn't ready to leave her sister's warm side. She stared into the dark room, closed her eyes for a blink, and opened them again to find a black figure lurking by the foot of the bed. She took in a startled breath, but recognized Spike's silhouette quickly. He made a gesture with his head and headed out into the hall.

    Buffy extricated her arm from under Dawn's pillow and followed him out. She didn’t want to look at him. "So. It's done then?"

    "Yeah," Spike said. She actually cringed at his voice. "It's all over. I need to show you something."

    "What?"

    "Come on." He started down the stairs.

    "Spike, what?" Buffy followed after him, trying to keep her voice down. "What is it?” She didn’t want to go with him. She didn’t want to look at him. She certainly didn’t want to walk beside him. And it wasn’t his fault, but she couldn’t help herself. “What do you need me to see?"

    "I found the brat's mum," he said.

    Buffy felt sick again. "Don't tell me this."

    "Believe me," Spike said. "You need to see this." He took her by the arm and led her, not roughly, but very firmly to the door. She sighed. The last time he'd done this, this cryptically, it was Riley.

    Buffy followed him in a sort of dream, unsure if she wasn't still curled up beside Dawn with her head on Dawn's blue star bear. The crickets chirped eerily, sounding like monsters in the darkness, but otherwise it was so still out. It didn’t seem real. Spike walked single-mindedly, not looking at or speaking to her. Buffy was relieved. She could pretend he wasn’t really there. For the first time, he felt dead to her. She knew his crypt would no longer be a comfort.

    No. She had to forgive him. She didn’t know how, but she’d have to try. He’d done everything she’d asked for, everything he could. It ended badly, but that wasn’t his fault. That was the demons they’d dusted before. He’d picked the child up and cuddled him, singing to him softly. He’d danced with him to punk rock. He’d...

    He’d tucked her in and let her sleep.

    Buffy only spoke when the hospital came in sight. "She was injured?"

    "Blood loss," Spike said. "Severe. They found her in a coma, she only woke up last night. That's why you didn't find anything. She wasn't able to report the child missing."

    Buffy baulked. "I don't think I can do this."

    "It's important," Spike said. He took her hand in his cool one, softly, reassuringly. "You need to see this."

    Buffy took another breath and followed him inside. Spike took her into the elevator, down a short hall, and then through a door with a security guard stationed outside it. "This is her," Spike said, and the security guard nodded.

    "She's got ten minutes. Keep quiet. The others are sleeping."

    Spike nodded, and led Buffy by the hand into the guarded ward.

    Buffy had been half afraid they were going into the psychiatric ward, what with the guard – had the woman been driven mad? – but it became clear this was not the case. This was pediatrics. "Spike, what...?"

    "Shh," Spike said. He went to a room a few doors down the hall and peered in. He made a strange movement, winced, and then gestured to Buffy. "Good. Take a look."

    Buffy went up and looked in at the open door.

    A woman in a hospital gown with a bandage on her throat was sitting in a rocking chair, gently rocking back and forth with an infant on her chest. The toddler was pale and sickly, but clearly alive. His eyes were open. He was weak, lying exhausted with his head on his mother’s shoulder, an oxygen mask on his little face. An IV dripped fluid into him. The woman was singing to him softly, something about pretty little horses. Buffy knew him on sight.

    She gasped, and Spike touched her shoulder. "His name is Jonathan Daniels," he said quietly. "I told them we'd found him in a crack house, injured, and but you had to get back to your little sis, and asked me to take him to the hospital. The police will need a statement from you to that effect, they'll be by your house in the morning. Sorry I had to involve you at all, but I needed a witness, or they would have put me as a suspect for the kidnapping.”

    “That’s fine,” Buffy said absently.

    “I told the security guard you were just coming by to see he was okay." He looked gently down at Buffy. "I thought you'd need to see."

    " _Is_ he okay?" Buffy asked. She pulled away from the door so as not to disturb the mother and child. Whatever else was going on, it was clear they didn't need her anymore.

    "He was sick," Spike said. "We were so worried about him turning vamp on us, we forgot about his neck. He had a blood infection."

    "Oh, my god!" Buffy breathed. "And we could have..." She felt sick again at what they might have done, through neglect or mistaken action.

    "You could have," Spike said. "I couldn't."

    Buffy was insulted. She kept her voice to a whisper, but it was harsh. "That's really rich, coming from the mass murderer!"

    "No," Spike said evenly, not insulted. "I couldn't." He tapped his head. "I tried. I couldn't. I thought about just waiting for him to change fully, but....”  He trailed off, and gestured to the guarded door with his head, and Buffy agreed, following him out of the ward.

    “So you just took him here, and hoped for the best?” Buffy said as they headed back down the stairs.

    “Pretty much. I had two choices. It was clear he was going to die, and there was no way I’d know until after he did. I could have just waited it out but....” He shook his head. “Anyway, I took him here. There's a slight chance he could still vamp on us, but I really doubt it. We’re already almost past the third night. I honestly think I could have hurt him if he was turning. And he really needed a doctor." Spike shrugged. “So, showed up, spun the tale, told them we'd heard him crying in that abandoned house by the Magic Box, and went in to investigate. They think he was kidnapped by the vamps who attacked his house. Oh, sorry, _crack heads_ who attacked his house," Spike amended. "His mum had finally woken, reported him missing. They put the two facts together, and put the two of them together within the hour. She was already here, after all." Spike laughed. "She called me a hero," he said with amusement.

    “And is he gonna recover?”

    “We should have brought him in yesterday,” Spike said, “before his blood pressure got low. But... yeah. They say there’s no organ damage, from what they’ve been able to measure, and they’ve treated the infection, got his blood pressure back up. It was close. He’ll be sick for a while. I’m sorry.” He shrugged. “I know death, I don’t know sick.”

    “You knew enough to bring him here.”

    “I gambled,” Spike said. “Looks like I won. I mean... what if we were wrong? You would never have forgiven yourself if he had just died in our care, and never turned.”

    “You wouldn’t have had to tell me,” Buffy realized. “You could have just buried him and told me he’d dusted.”

    Spike looked at her a little oddly. “Yeah. I could have done that.”

    But he hadn’t, Buffy realized. He’d taken a chance on life, rather than waiting for the inevitability of a death he’d feel no remorse for, and compounding the sin by lying about it. If all he’d really cared about were Buffy’s feelings, the lie wouldn’t have been a problem at all. Sitting at home and waiting would have been lots easier than going to the hospital, spinning a different lie, and dealing with the possible repercussions of it, while being noticed by human authorities with guns and laws. This choice was actually _dangerous_ for Spike. Yet this was the path he’d chosen.

    She was very confused. But still, inexplicable choices aside – “He's okay,” she said with potent relief. “He's got his mom, he's okay."

    "Yeah," Spike said. "Dad and big sister are drained dry, though. Someone must have invited them in."

    "Oh, god," Buffy said, her elation hissing away like a punctured balloon.

    "Hey. We did our part," Spike said. "We even dusted the bad guys, his mum’s had her vengeance.” He looked at Buffy. “We had to keep him, Buff. If he had been a vamp, he'd have killed her."

    "If we'd just turned him over to the police, he wouldn't have got so sick."

    Spike shrugged. "The slayer's supposed to kill demons, not play nursemaid. The lines were a little blurred between the two this time. That's all."

    "We're sure he's not gonna turn?"

    "Pretty sure," Spike said. "I just tried to grab him again when I looked in at the door. Chip fired nice and hot."

    Buffy had never been so grateful for that neruo-chip in her life. Not even when it had saved Tara. "Thank you," she told Spike.

    Spike shrugged. "Hey. Just wanted him off my hands, one way or another."

    "I don't believe that."

    "You don't have to," Spike said. "What's done is done." He looked over at her. "Mind if I... walk you home?"

    Buffy glanced at him. He'd sounded so much like a shy highschool kid she was almost touched. "It's just a walk, Spike," she said. It wasn't really an agreement, but she hadn't pushed him away, either. He trailed by her side as she left.

    They walked in silence for a while, out the hospital, across the parking lot. Then Spike briefed her on their story, for when the police came to follow up. After that they talked about inconsequential things, the weather, the traffic, some of the music he'd played these last days, when she’d originally gotten her children's books. The light seemed brighter now, the crickets less unearthly. It was pleasant. Companionable. Funnily enough, it reminded Buffy of the first time Spike had ever walked her home, way back when he was big-time evil, and they needed to hammer out a truce in order to defeat Angel. She didn't know why she was reminded of it – Spike was very different now, and she... she was very different now. Her level of distrust of him had changed dramatically. But still... there they were. Allies again.

    She was so glad she didn’t have to try and force herself to forgive him.

    As they neared her house she changed the subject. "I wanted to thank you," she said, "for making me leave."

    Spike glanced at her.

    "You were right. I didn't need that image in my head."

    Spike smiled to himself. "That was one reason.”

    Buffy was confused. "What do you mean?"

    Spike shrugged. "You didn't need to see that, it's true. I mean, why torture yourself when you don't have to. But that wasn't the real reason."

    "What was the real reason?" Buffy asked.

    Spike stopped walking and looked up with his hands in his pockets. His eyes caught on the moon, and he gazed up at it.

    "Spike?"

    "I don't have a conscience, Buffy," he said, still looking at the sky. “Killing something doesn't bother me. I'd grown kind of fond of the brat, but not enough to be hurt by killing him. I can't feel guilt for that sort of thing. I don't have a soul."

    "Yeah."

    "You do."

    "That doesn't mean I'm not tough enough."

    "No, you're tough enough. That's not what I meant. You remember what you were asking me the other day, about finding ways around the chip, hunting people... and whether or not it was a moral decision?”

    “Yeah.”

    He finally looked down at her. "It’s true I don't have a conscience," he said. "I have you."

    "I don't understand."

    Spike stared at her, and the depth of his gaze disturbed her. "Look, I know you don't want to hear any of this, but you're inside me, Buffy. You're in my heart. In my gut. You burn through my blood. It doesn't matter how many times I try to push you out, push you away, you're always in there, whether I want you there or not.  And that's all of you, your voice, your scent, your tears, your heart, your disapproval, everything I know about you. I know how you’d feel... I can almost _feel_ how you’d feel, about pretty much anything. Whether you’re really there or not,” he said. “You were still there in me even while you were...” He stopped, unable to say the words.

    “There are ways around you,” he admitted. “Kind of like the chip. And truthfully, when it comes to little stuff, petty larceny, cheating at poker, stuff like that, in the end you don’t even care. But big things... life and death things. The idea of killing that little guy and trying to ignore what you’d feel about it while your actual eyes were staring at me in horror and disgust....” He shook his head. “The bloody chip keeps me chained, Buffy. But when it comes to stuff like that... you're the closest thing I have to a soul."

    Buffy knew, then, why he’d taken the boy to the hospital. Why he’d risked his own safety. Why he hadn’t just let the child die and told her a lie. _He_ wouldn’t have felt it was wrong. _She_ would have.

    She swallowed, deeply moved. Also a little frightened – it was a lot of responsibility, which really in the end had very little to do with her directly. If he had up and fallen in love with someone less moral than she was... he’d still be a monster. As it was, he was this twisted mix of shadows that would go out of his way to save people’s lives, and rifle their pockets in the same gesture. That was, if he was even telling the truth – and she could never be convinced he was. _How good am I, pet? Be honest._ But still... it was a very potent thought. That somehow, in some way, she had actually changed him, inside. Buffy cleared her throat.

    "Sorry," he said, recognizing her discomfort.

   "No, it's okay," Buffy said. "It's just not every day you're told you're Jiminy Cricket."

   Spike laughed. "Should I give a little whistle?" he asked.

   "No," Buffy said. "You should give me a hug." She stepped forward and put her arms around him, the soft black leather of his coat slick under her hands, his chest cool and muscular through his t-shirt. He almost gasped as his arms went around her shoulders, and he held her very close. She could hear him drinking in the scent of her hair, feel a slight tremble in his flesh. _All I could think was that I wanted to hold you._ She knew she probably wasn't being fair to him. She’d hit him a lot, but she had never _hugged_ him before, not like she would have Xander or Willow. In a way she was unfairly teasing him with this platonic gesture, but she needed a hug – really actually _needed_ it –  and she knew he wanted it. "Thanks for helping me with this," she said against his chest.

    "I'll help with anything you need, love," he said, his voice heady and seductive in her ear. "Anything at all." His hands around her shoulders started to slide sensuously down, with just the faintest hint of his nails.

    Buffy suppressed a responsive erotic shiver, and she pulled away with almost-mock annoyance. "Hey, hands!" she said, slapping them down.

    Spike whistled a bit of the Disney tune, and Buffy pushed him away – more affectionately than angrily. "Good _night_ , Spike."

    “Night, Cricket.”

    Spike strode off into the night, whistling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The symptoms of septicemia include increased heart rate, rapid breathing, extreme paleness, cold, clammy skin, lethargy, low blood pressure at advanced stages, and either high fever or low body temperature. It is most likely to affect the immuno-compromised, such as the elderly or young children. Prognosis is extremely varied, with a death rate of 80% for the extremely immuno-compromised, to as little as 5% for a healthy person with no prior illness. Permanent organ damage is possible in about 25% of cases, and chances of survival increase the earlier treatment is begun. All of which means, the brat was probably fine, in the end.


End file.
